They were at Mos Bina (Come and See)
by TwinEnigma
Summary: The Empire makes an example of Alderaan earlier. The sands of Tatooine shift and a storm begins to grow, spreading with the wind. I was there, at Mos Bina, when it happened, when Ekkreth played Depur. Dedicated to Fialleril
1. all we have is our bones and our secrets

**_They were at Mos Bina (Come and See)_**

 _by TwinEnigma_

 _Warnings/Codes: AU, slavery, the trafficking of sentient beings, Alderaan gets blown up earlier, there are consequences._

 _AN: This fic is inspired by and rigorously utilizes the headcanons and Tatooine slave culture as envisioned by Fialleril. It is, as such, dedicated to Fialleril as a gift, because it sure wouldn't exist without these awesome headcanons. So, basically, you should read Fialleril's stuff because **awesome**.  
_

 _Also, I originally posted this on Ao3, because I was super sleepy and faceplanted into the keyboard before the thought of crossposting even occurred to me and it's taken a few days to catch up (on sleep)._

* * *

 **1: all we have is our bones and our secrets**

It comes without warning.

Savage and ruthless, in a single instant the people of Alderaan are rendered homeless. It is intended as a demonstration, a test fire for a superweapon not even near total completion, against a world thought to have rebel sympathies. Only those lucky enough to be off-world have been spared, a small fraction of a population that once numbered in the billions.

Huddled among the diaspora, Princess Leia finds herself twice orphaned. The Empire has taken both her family and her world. Looking back at the ashes of her world, she dries her tears and takes the pain and the anger, putting it to the side, saving it for another day. One day, she tells herself and the other survivors, the Empire will be made to pay for this travesty. For now, all they have is each other: they, together, are all that remains of Alderaan and this is something that cannot be taken from them, no matter what follows. Even stripped of everything, this is the one thing they cannot lose, the one thing that they must not let be taken from them. It is something they have each branded into their hearts.

"For Alderaan," they whisper quietly among themselves, "We must survive."

"For Alderaan," Princess Leia says.

* * *

They are a fleet of the lost and unwanted.

No one will take them, she learns this the hard way. No one wants to risk having the same fate befall their world. Senator after senator, world after world turns them away and, worse, some have begun to exile the few Alderaanians who had been there, many for generations, in their fear. Even the Corellians, known to loathe the Empire to the last, will not have them – they may have rocket fuel for blood, but they are not fools. Credits are running scarce and supplies are dwindling. Their options are growing scarcer with each day and their numbers only swell as more of their displaced and orphaned people find their way to her.

She thinks, perhaps, that they should seek out General Kenobi or the Rebellion, but she fears the Empire might be watching still or, worse, using them as bait. Her advisers and bodyguards agree: they know all too well of the Empire's capacity for cruelty.

They manage, scraping together what little they have left, and try for the Outer Rim.

And that is where the slavers find them.

* * *

"They must not know you are the princess," her bodyguards say as they help her change into one of their uniforms and quickly, purposefully restyle her hair to match their own. Outside, in the halls, the dull whoomps and shrieks of blaster fire grows closer.

There is fierceness in their voices, a defiant resolve, and Leia hears what they are truly saying: _they have taken everything from us, but they shall not take you._ She is now more than princess, more than senator: she has become a symbol of Alderaan.

Distantly, she thinks of her sister in all but blood, Winter, on one of the other ships and how she must be doing the same. Winter would tell her this, too, is something they must endure.

"They must not know," her bodyguards remind her once more before the doors come crashing down.

Leia takes the identity and title of Princess, burying it deep inside her heart and bones where the slavers cannot see it. She tries not to think of the escape pod, of R2-D2 and C-3PO, hurtling away from them in search of General Kenobi, and instead focuses on the lie she must now tell.

They must not know.

* * *

Leia watches in silence as she and her people are slowly separated to be sold, their ships scrapped and scavenged for anything of value. She hides her fury, hides her pain, because she must if she is to survive.

The explosive chip beneath her skin is something she is intimately aware of.

"Endure," her bodyguard whispers, kissing her cheek in farewell, and marches with her head held high to the auction block.

"Endure," she tells her people when it is her turn – an order, maybe the last she'll ever give them – and she goes with her head held high.

"For Alderaan," they whisper as she passes, "We must survive."

It is a promise.

* * *

The Hutts like pretty things.

Leia is grateful that they do not like politics – or, at least, the _Empire_ 's politics – and do not recognize her among the other Alderaanians they have paid for. They see only a young human girl with a pretty face, one of several such girls and no more remarkable than the one next to her in line.

The part of her that is a senator, that believes in freedom and justice, violently swears that this affront must end. She promises herself, then and there, that when she is free, she will bring the Rebellion here and they will stop this madness. R2-D2 and C3-PO will make it and they _will_ find Obi-Wan, she believes that – she has to.

She takes her fury, her indignation and turns them over and over, until these feelings are a polished thing, smooth and sharp as durasteel blades. Then, quietly, she puts them aside. They have a place, but they will not help her very much here where survival is in obedience and defiance is a subtle thing to be found in the spaces between "Yes" and "Master", where what is given is only what is expected and all that is important is concealed by the illusion of absolute servitude. It is a game she recalls well from her time in the Senate, though the stakes are, perhaps, more intimately dangerous than ever before.

She vows that she will not give the Hutts the satisfaction of her anger and humiliation. She will give them only what they expect to see and nothing else. She has faith that R2-D2 and C3-PO will find Obi-Wan and bring him to help.

For now, she will bide her time and endure.

* * *

In the slave quarters of Mos Bina, the Tatooine slaves talk when they hear her name. It is hushed, full of bewilderment and cautious reverence. Some giggle. A few children stare at her, eyes wide with awe and wonder, and they whisper in a tongue she has never heard before. She wonders if they recognize her, if they know who she really is, and she is frightened. If the Hutts should discover who she really is, then all will be lost.

But as soon as the Hutt overseers come, these people fall silent and give no indication that they even know any other tongues save Basic and Huttese. The words princess and senator never cross their lips and she wonders if they really do know who she is or if, perhaps, it is merely that her name has some special meaning to them in their secret tongue, one that she does not yet know.

The slaves don't own anything here except for their secrets.

Leia and the other Alderaanians can respect that. After all, the Hutts cannot take away something if they don't know it exists.

The Princess of Alderaan eludes them, unable to be touched.

* * *

"On Alderaan, my name had a meaning," she confesses to the elders one night. She dares not give the rest, dares not allude that she is more than a mere survivor of Alderaan who has fallen victim to slavers. "It meant beloved."

The old Tatooinian human combing her hair clucks her tongue, smiling. "On Tatooine, it has another."

"Oh?" she asks.

The woman twists her hair into an intricate loop. "She is the Mighty One, Krayt dragon."

"Elder Sister," one of the other female Tatooinian slaves says in agreement, "She Who Fears Nothing because nothing can touch her."

"Daughter of Ekkreth," another adds, nodding her covered head – she is Tusken, but if she is human born or not no one knows –, and says a phrase that Leia has come to recognize as a benediction.

It is the same phrase the slaves have whispered since she was sold to this place, the same phrase they say when they speak her name and do not mean her specifically. Amatakka, she knows now, is the name of the language, though she can only recognize the words for _walk_ and _sand_.

Leia considers for a moment. "Tell me about her, about the Krayt dragon."

The old women laugh and then they tell her.

* * *

One day, there is a commotion.

"Come, come quickly," the elder, the one all call grandmother, says, beckoning her.

All the slaves, young and old, Tatooinian, Alderaanian and those from worlds far beyond the Arkanis system, pour out of their quarters, murmuring and whispering with confusion and excitement.

" _Am-Ama_ , what's going on?" Leia asks as they press forward, flooding the gallery.

She is caught in the tide of sentients and flows with them.

The Grandmother, eyes bright, pulls her along, turning her head. "An old man has come."

"He plays Sabacc against _Depur,"_ a youth shouts from up ahead of them, "And he bets to free us, like in the stories! Come and see! Come and see!"

Leia feels the air leave her body in a rush, even as the youth's words are echoed through the crowd in growing reverence, and she sags against Grandmother's grip.

" _Am-Ama, em… ek ta_ _avi_ droid?" she asks, struggling to recall the right words, "A blue R2 unit?"

The old woman's eyebrows rise in awe and wonder, silently asking how it is possible that she could she have known this. Then, the now familiar Amatakka benediction falls from her lips: _may the Mighty One walk the sand unfettered._

Leia laughs, relief and joy flooding her.

R2-D2 and C3-PO made it.

Nothing may touch her.

She is, at last, without fear.


	2. stir the dust of memories lost

**_They were at Mos Bina (Come and See)_**

 _by TwinEnigma_

* * *

 **2: stir the dust of memories lost**

"What is your bidding, my master?"

He kneels on mechanical legs that feel nothing, his cloak falling around him like a death shroud, and bows his head as much as he is able to with the respirator. It is not that far, but it has never been meant to be.

Above him, the hologram of Palpatine's face twists with something akin to amusement. "My spies inform me that something _interesting_ has happened on Tatooine."

Darth Vader does not move and only the sound of his respirator is proof of his continued existence. He knows Tatooine, but only vaguely. It exists as little more than a dim, unwanted memory to him now.

"There's been a slave revolt," Palpatine informs him with a cruel smile. "Put it down."

He bows mechanically and feels nothing. The taunt of slavery lost its sting when the world was still bright and not tinted in shades of red. He is numb to it.

"Yes, my master," he says.

* * *

He is surprised that he has forgotten how much he _hates_ sand.

The respirator rattles again and his service droid sputters in distress. The sand – _coarse, rough, irritating_ a distant memory whispers – gets everywhere and into everything. It necessitates frequent scrubbing of his respirator filters and limits him to the relative safety of the local garrison, a minor inconvenience that rapidly transcends into an annoyance that startles him.

At the desk across from him, the garrison's commanding officer squirms uncomfortably. He, like everyone here, is covered in dusty traces of sand that don't quite come out and drips with sweat in the heat of double-noon.

Sand has clogged the air cooling units again. In the distance, there is the steady shriek and thump of an impact drill as the base mechanics strip the aging, battered units down in silence. It isn't likely they'll ever get a replacement this far out on the Rim. But this is how things have always been on Tatooine. Empire or Republic, it doesn't much matter: things hardly ever change and the sand doesn't care either way.

"Where did the revolt start?" he asks.

The commanding officer's answer is quick, almost automatic: "We traced it north, to one of the Hutt palaces in Mos Bina. It seems the violence erupted after they tried to reclaim a large number of slaves lost in a bet."

Vader turns, approaching the flimsiplast map tacked on the wall. It's an all-too-familiar situation. Hutts are notoriously greedy and aren't known for losing gracefully, so it's hardly out of the ordinary that something like this has happened. What is unusual is that this time instead of petering out, the violence has spread like brushfire. The whole atmosphere of Tatooine feels charged, primed to explode at a moment's notice. Even the Force feels agitated, churning restlessly on the edge of his awareness.

Idly, he traces the pattern of pins indicating the spread of the violence and finds it familiar somehow. Perhaps an Alliance tactic? But why their sudden interest in the slavery on Tatooine and why _now_? What had changed?

"What do we know about the Hutt's slaves?" he asks.

"A mix of various bipedal sentients," the commander pauses, looking at his datapad again. "Only one recent acquisition stuck out – a shipment of Alderaanian survivors, majority human."

Beneath his mask, he narrows his eyes, considering. Bail Organa had been a known Rebel sympathizer and he'd passed his shameless anti-Imperial politics on to his eldest heir, the young senator Leia. And while Bail had met his end with Alderaan, there had been reports that she had avoided that fate, if only just, and had approached multiple planets with requests for aid. The last reports had placed her ad hoc fleet of survivors headed for the Outer Rim. If she _had_ made it to the Rim and been picked up by space pirates or slavers, then that surely might tempt the Rebels into action.

Except that gambling for slaves didn't fit with their tactics. It's too risky, too attention-grabbing for a high level operative retrieval, and the Rebels are far too good at subterfuge to take those kinds of risks when there are other, _better_ options available to them. No, it's far more likely that if they were involved, they would have chosen a low profile method, such as sending a single operative to either buy her freedom or help her escape and use the smugglers to get her offworld. This couldn't have been their handiwork.

Maybe this had been a personal matter. It wouldn't be the first time someone tried to rescue family and it went sour. Strange, though, that it would have generated such a violent reaction and one that has persisted so long. There had to be something special about this incident or maybe the individual involved.

"What about the gambler?" he asks. "What do we know about them?"

The commander stills. Then, in an even, neutral voice: "Nothing, sir."

Vader turns, glaring at him from beneath his mask.

This time, the commander does not squirm. He stands at half-ease, his expression blank and wordlessly offers the datapad.

He takes it, scans the report, and it is exactly as said: there is nothing. "You are dismissed, commander."

"Sir," the commander bows.

In the back of his mind, a vague sense of familiarity stirs, but it is gone before he can grasp at it.

* * *

He travels north to Mos Bina, taking a detachment from the garrison with him, and finds the district where the revolt started. The Hutt palaces here are abandoned, sand spilling into the untended structures, and the few people remaining watch them move through the area with wary looks. Long scorch marks from blaster fire stain the walls and there's clear evidence of looting. In the distance, the market bustles loudly as if nothing has happened.

Stepping into the palace, he finds more evidence of violence, though the sand has long since swallowed the blood and bodies alike and everything of any value is gone. He kneels stiffly, picking up a handful of sand, and lets it sift through his fingers as he takes in the room.

"Commander Fremant, have your men search the area for surveillance systems," he orders.

The commander's crisp _"sir"_ is punctuated with an equally crisp bow and the stormtroopers move out.

He rises, straining against the suit's limitations to look up towards the ceiling.

Hutts were greedy, but they could also be _clever._

There, among the eaves, he could see the faint shape of a holorecorder lens.

* * *

The recording isn't as helpful as he had anticipated. It had been aimed straight down at the card tables below. From this vantage point, it was very easy to see the player's hands and determine if they were cheating, but it was absolutely _abysmal_ for identifying individual players.

He scrolls back through the recording, idly watching the looting and violence play out in reverse, until at last things appeared to suddenly calm. Stopping the recording, he begins to play it back.

On the screen, the Hutt is playing Sabacc. Their opponent is bipedal, possibly a human, but it is difficult to assess their true nature due to the camera angle. Dressed in the hooded heavy robes of a desert traveler, only the hands and cards of the Hutt's opponent are readily visible. Their Sabacc hands are poor overall or middling, but it is clear there was some strategy to this individual's actions.

He goes back further and watches the opponent again, this time from the time they sat down.

This person, whoever they were, definitely had a _plan_ from the moment they walked into the palace. Every action had been completely deliberate. First, they lure the Hutt into a game of Sabacc with what looked like gems of some kind – possibly Krayt dragon pearls –, then they steadily increase the pot each round until it is as high as it could go, and proceed to thoroughly trounce the Hutt with an _Idiot's Array_.

Then, the infuriated Hutt makes their move and chaos erupts. A bright flash washes out the recording for a moment – a blaster shot likely fired too close to the lens – and the Hutt is being strangled, dragged out of frame by a chain looped around their neck while their opponent, hood now fallen, swipes up a device that the Hutt had dropped. It looks like the chip controller. They are then helped to their feet and out of frame by a human boy in desert clothes and an aging R2 unit.

He pauses the recording, looking at the top of the opponent's head.

Human male, possibly older, traveling with a boy – a teen most likely; both were of fair coloration and had short hair, though the older male's hair was cropped closely and the boy's was not.

Something stirs in the back of his mind: it's a vague sense of familiarity. He frowns beneath his mask and replays the recording, watching the man closely. Again and again, he replays the sequence, but he is no closer to identifying either the man or the boy.

And yet, the sense of familiarity nags at him still. He feels, somehow, like he _should_ know this man.

He stares at the screen for a long time, but no answers come.

* * *

"Sir," Commander Fremant states from the doorway.

Vader shoots a glance at him out of the corner of his eye. The medical droid working on his filters beeps in annoyance at the distraction.

"We've captured a boy," Fremant reports. "His ID check matches a Hutt inventory record from Mos Bina. He was trying to sneak into the slave quarter by the port. He was carrying one of these, along with some medical supplies."

The commander holds out a small device. It's a crude, homemade bio-scanner. It's lighter than it looks, barely registering as a load on his arms when he takes it, and it is designed to be broken down quickly into its component parts.

"And his chip?" he asks.

"Removed," Fremant replies. "He won't say by whom."

Of course he won't, Vader thinks and shoos away the medical droid. "I want to speak to him – _alone._ "

"Sir," Fremant says, bowing.

He rises and follows the commander out of the room.

There's a small scar on the back of the commander's neck, about the size of a chip. The word _free_ is tattooed below it in Aurebesh.

Vader finds it somehow deeply ironic.

* * *

"He's unlikely to talk," Fremant comments dryly, "even with encouragement."

It is unsaid but implied that they don't even deem it worth trying.

Vader ignores him, instead moving to turn off the holorecorder lens for the cell.

Commander Fremant inclines his head in silent acknowledgement and turns his back to the observation console. He waves his hand sharply and the Stormtroopers on guard quickly file out of the room. With a sharp bow, the commander then leaves as well.

Now it is just Vader and the prisoner.

Inside the cell, the prisoner sits quietly. He is of Mirialan ancestry and young, too, from the look of it, but that means nothing. On Tatooine, youth is no indicator of innocence or naivety. He is already bruised and battered, brown splotches beneath his yellow-green skin, and he does not flinch when he sees him enter – rather, he steels himself for more of the same.

Vader stares down at him, letting the deep hiss of the respirator fill the void of silence.

There are other ways to gain information.

He taps into the Force, letting it flow through him and grasping it with old familiar ease, letting the prisoner's fear and anger become a channel by which to dredge up his own and feed the power of the Dark Side.

There.

He grasps at the power and then digs down, deep into the place in his soul where only ashes of his former self remain. The words come out through his modulator slowly, jarringly stilted and rusty as he stumbles to recall them: " _Who is the old man, the one at Mos Bina?_ "

The prisoner stills, eyes wide in horror. Then, his eyes harden as he draws his lips in a thin line and juts out his chin defiantly.

He raises a hand, clenching his fingers, and the prisoner gasps for air, clutching desperately at his throat and garbling out a prayer for strength as he is pulled upwards.

 _"Tell me,"_ he orders, relaxing his grip on the Force by a fraction, just enough to let him speak.

An image flickers through the prisoner's mind: a figure, face indistinct and shadowed by a hood, dressed in the robes of a desert traveler. Somehow, there is something familiar about this man, but he cannot place him.

 _"You will tell me,"_ he says.

The prisoner glares at him, still struggling, and grins, haltingly grinding out the words, _"You… forgot… but… you know them."_

A single word, a name, fills the prisoner's mind. Skimming it off the surface is effortless.

 _Ekkreth._

Somewhere, deep in the ashes of his once self, something of _Anakin_ stirs in sluggish recognition, as if awakening from some great sleep, and supplies a dusty, dim recollection.

 _Ekkreth_ , the trickster with many faces.

Now, at those words, the faded memory of a woman's voice rises up like a desert wind from all the things he'd thought buried:

 _Ekkreth was going along one day and their youngest son came running, all the way from the village. Parent, he cried, come and see! Depur has come and stolen away my sisters and brothers and made them slaves. Ekkreth heard this and told their son: do not fear, for I have a plan. I will bring them back, even if I must become enslaved myself, I will free them. And so, Ekkreth went to where Depur was and they took with them a bag full of the most precious of jewels and a deck of cards…_

"A children's tale," he intones bitterly and squeezes.

There is no room for such things in the Empire.

And yet, in Mos Bina, this is one story that had become truth.

Vader snarls in sudden fury, turning and storming out of the cell.

The prisoner's corpse collapses to the floor, as if it were a doll with its strings cut.

He smiles still.

* * *

 _Come and see._

He does not know what brings him out of his temporary quarters in the garrison – restlessness, perhaps. Sleep hasn't ever come easily, not for a long time. He can't remember if it ever did.

The garrison is eerily quiet as he walks out to the compound yard, devoid even of the incessant thrum of the air cooling system. Many of the rooms look empty, sand piling higher and higher in the corners as the wind kicks up.

In the distance, a fast-moving storm gathers. It will be here soon.

Where is the commander? Where are the Stormtroopers? There is no sign of them, no indication of where they might have gotten to. Even the map is gone.

On the table in the mess hall, he notices a pile of small, bloodied chips and a discarded portable holocron projector. When he plays it, Commander Fremant's image wavers into view.

"I had a master once," the recording says, features relaxed. It is the most honest the man has ever looked. "I bought my freedom and joined up. I _thought_ I was free. It turns out that I merely exchanged one master for another."

A dead man's voice, the voice of the prisoner he'd killed, issues from the speakers: "One master was enough, don't you think?"

There is a shriek of metal and hiss of sparks as he crushes the small device in his hand. With a scowl, he stalks out of the mess hall and into the yard. How is it that he hadn't seen this?

 _We show depur what they expect_ , a faded memory murmurs quietly. _And depur does not look any further for we are beneath their notice_.

Rage bubbles through him, boiling hot, and he flexes the Force around him. Every bit of abandoned equipment in the yard crumples.

It's a poor substitute.

The wind grows stronger and his cape flaps against him. He knows, in the way that all born to Tatooine know, that he should get inside: the storm is almost on him, but he is _angry_ and _insulted_ and his wrath is far from sated.

His suit's moisture alarm registers a sudden spike in the humidity and, frowning, he reaches to deactivate it. Sand's probably gotten into the casing again, causing it to malfunction. Then, he pauses, eyes widening beneath his mask.

At the gate to the compound, there's a figure, clad in the hooded brown robes of a desert traveler. His face is indistinct, covered by the shadows of the hood, but Vader _knows_ him, somehow, he is sure of it.

 _Come and see_ , the whirling sands seem to say.

The wind flares up and crosswise, whipping off the hood of the figure, and he freezes completely, a horrified awe flooding him. He knows this face, though he has not seen it in years, has not seen it since before Mustafar: it is _his_ face, youthful and bright, free of scars and suffering. In his hand is a homemade chip scanner, like the one the prisoner had.

 _Lukka_ , the Force says. _Free_ is what he hears.

 _This cannot be real_ , he thinks, but it _is_. He can feel the radiance of them through the Force, feel the Light side flowing through them, and it floods him with terror he hasn't known for years.

The figure with his face smiles. They shine like the twin suns at double-noon.

 _Come and see_ , the wind whispers and the sand rises in the growing gale, obscuring his vision for a moment. When it clears, the figure is gone.

There is nothing but the wind and the sand and the silence.

A drop of water pelts against the ground, hissing as it turns into steam. Then, another and another, a spattering that travels quickly across the broiling sand. The distant crack of lighting and rumble of thunder is the only warning he gets before the sky completely blackens and the sacred, life-giving rain comes down in a torrent unlike anything he has ever seen.

Still, he remains, as if rooted to the spot.

He wants, desperately, to laugh, but he cannot laugh anymore. He is not capable. A low, rattling sound comes out of the respirator instead.

 _Ekkreth has many faces_ , a memory whispers.

Ekkreth has many faces and _his_ is one of them – _Ahnakeen_ , his mother's voice speaks, _it means bringer of the rain_ –; it is _raining,_ it is _raining on Tatooine,_ something in the back of his mind shrieks in disbelief. But this doesn't make any sense – _none_ of it makes any sense. He'd killed all that is Anakin in him long ago and buried it with Padmé and their child. How then is this possible?

He doesn't understand and the Force yields no answers.

He just doesn't understand.

 _"Ar-Amu,"_ he murmurs, the old litany spilling forth in near complete hysteria, _"Forgive me, I have forgotten who I am and from whence I came."_

 _Forgive me, oh Ar-Amu._

 _I am so lost._

He screams in pain and, through the modulator, it becomes a roar.


	3. you are of us (but you do not know it)

**_They were at Mos Bina (Come and See)_**

 _by TwinEnigma_

* * *

 **3: you are of us (but you do not know it yet)  
**

There is a story spreading across Tatooine.

It comes down from the north, comes with the runaways and the free, and it almost always begins the same way.

A new slave comes to the quarters and, when Grandmother asks of them, they say this:

 _I was there, at Mos Bina._

 _I was there, when Ekkreth played Depur and won. I saw the Krayt Dragon come and she brought with her the storm and the sand to smother Depur._

 _When it was done, they broke our chains and they told us this: come and see, you are free now and Ar-Amu will weep with joy! Come and see!_

And when it is done, they ask if Ekkreth will come for them, too.

 _Of course,_ they say, _for I am Ekkreth and I tell you this story to save your life._

And they reach into their bag of tricks with a smile.

 _Now, come and see!_

* * *

Obi-Wan sits, huddled in the kitchen of a safe house with a cup of _tzai_ , and watches the young Skywalker standing at the window, still in his traveling cloak. Outside, a storm rages – a rainstorm the likes of which hasn't been seen for centuries – and the boy watches it with quiet wonder. Nearby, a Togruta quietly tells her patient a tale in a strange tongue, one that is fast becoming familiar to his ears, while she works on removing the slave chip from his neck. Leia watches the back door, her hand on the blaster at her hip.

This is not the way he quite imagined things would happen. But _Skywalkers_ , as Obi-Wan mulishly notes, are notoriously impossible to keep out of trouble and he supposes that he shouldn't have been so surprised when R2-D2 found him.

And so, he'd picked up his lightsaber once more and a bag full of reclaimed kyber crystals and made his way to the Lars moisture farm to ask if he could borrow their speeder. Owen was not happy to see him, but he'd softened when Obi-Wan had told him the reason. Leia was Shmi's granddaughter, after all, and family.

It had been many, _many_ years since he'd had any cause to bother with the slavers on Tatooine, but Owen remembered all too well the methodology of buying back someone's freedom from the Hutts and he'd volunteered all that he knew to Obi-Wan:

 _The Hutts are greedy and cruel. You must not appear to be too interested in one particular slave or they will not sell them to you. Divorce yourself from any notion of attachment or compassion. You have to pretend that you are not there for them, but are there for a thing. If you want to narrow down the field, ask about a general skill or quality the one you're looking for shares with only a few others. Do not look at them first. Look at the whole group, take your time, and invent reasons to narrow down the options further. The idea is to get the Hutt themselves to suggest selling you the one you want to free without letting them know that you are leading them to it._

It was Luke, though, who had suggested playing the Hutt in Sabacc, reasoning that Leia would not want to leave her people behind in the slave quarters – he was right, of course, but that knowledge had come later, after they had tracked her to Mos Bina and after the bloodshed.

Obi-Wan looks at him, watches the subtle play of emotions flickering across his face as he watches the rain.

Luke, in many ways, is his father's son, but there is very much of Padmé in him, too. He is a mix of the best of their qualities, compassionate and committed to what is right and just: this, he shares with his sister absolutely. And yet, they are so very different, from each other and their parents, in ways that he is still learning even now, months later.

It is a tragedy, he thinks, that they never got to know Padmé or Anakin as he had known them, before the _Sith_ , before Mustafar and Polis Massa.

But that is neither here nor there. Obi-Wan cannot turn back time and the general he once was is needed here, in the now, to help with this still-growing uprising – one that, perhaps, should have come long, long ago. Not for the first time, he regrets his past inaction on the matter, regrets not pushing it with the Council or with the Senate.

He is making up for the deficit in full, it seems, lately.

In fact, if he's being rather honest with himself, there is a rather unsettling feeling that he has stepped off some sort of strange, yawning precipice into a vast unknown. It does not help that the Tatooine-born slaves they freed in Mos Bina had, at first, greeted him with a strange name, one laden with a meaning unknown to him.

It's disquieting. He is a stranger to this hidden part of Tatooine culture and it feels as if he is being pulled along and into some unknown role, one that is brimming with foreign context. It is the same nagging sense of hidden symbolism that had accompanied Luke's suggestion to trick the Hutt into a Sabacc game and it chafes at him. It doesn't feel quite right at all to take it when it's obviously not meant for an outsider like him and he'd told Luke that.

 _I'm deeply sorry, Ben, but you kind of look the part,_ Luke had admitted to him at the time. In that moment with those old, familiar words and radiating mischief so thoroughly, Luke had been so much like his father that it had pained him deeply and he had let it go for a while.

As he has asked, they have stopped calling him by that name but he is certainly not the first or the last one they call by that name, not by far. There are others, freed and escaped slaves who infiltrate the shipyards and garrisons, who slip through the cracks in compounds with scanners and medical kits; and there are also freeborn people who do not hesitate to conceal those fleeing their masters or stride into the marketplaces far from their homes to buy back those stolen, weaving elaborate deceptions to fool the eyes of slavers and Hutts alike. Even Luke and Leia, too, get called this name, Luke moreso than Leia. But her name is sacred, in and of itself, if he is to understand correctly, and carries a different kind of weight.

Idly, he wonders if Anakin might have been able to explain all of this, if things had been different.

Then again, he might not have: early on, Anakin had suddenly stopped speaking of Tatooine altogether and, in all the years thereafter, he had never once spoken again on the subject of his homeworld or his time as a slave, despite it being an issue known to be close to his heart. Perhaps it was too painful or, worse, he had simply given up any hope of being listened to.

 _Oh, my brother, I have failed you so many times and I did not know it,_ Obi-Wan thinks and looks down at the cup of cooling _tzai_ in his hands. _Forgive me._

 _"Ekkreth?"_ the Togruta's patient gasps, eyes darting towards Luke.

Their chip, finally removed, clinks as it is dropped into a glass. They will salvage the explosive for later use. There are many more slaves to free, among them the lost and scattered survivors of Alderaan that the loyal and steadfast Leia seeks with tireless devotion. Not all of the slavers or Hutts will let their liberation pass unpunished. They must be ready to act. This is something that the man that was once General Kenobi knows implicitly.

Luke turns away from the window and smiles kindly at the patient. He says something in that tongue and beckons to them. At this, they let out a great wracking sob of joy and stagger across the room to join him.

 _You are free and Ar-Amu weeps at last. Come._

 _Come and see._


End file.
